Soup Season is Autumn

So I was making bean soups using my InstaPot the past few weekends, when I decided to make some chicken stock to use up the cilantro chicken dumplings in my freezer. I used store bought chicken stock for the bean soups but wanted to make it from scratch for this one. I wanted the unctuous, gelatinous feel of some well made stock instead of the thin broth of store bought. So I bought chicken wings and chicken feet planning to boil them to extract the gelatin.

I first roasted the wings in the oven for a deeper flavor. I roasted garlic with them. Then I put quick singed onion and ginger, the chicken feet, roasted wings, the garlic, and a lot of water into my InstaPot and let it slow cook for ten hours. When it was done, I strained the broth and stored in the fridge. I wanted to keep the meat from the chicken wings, but the chicken feet grossed me out, so I threw them away.

The stock was for the dumplings, but I ended up making a chicken rice soup. It was one of the best soups I ever made — the stock being a really important part. But here’s the rest that went in. Carrots, onions, and celery. Special wild rice perhaps a quarter cup. Some diced potatoes. I cooked up some chicken thighs. For more flavor I tried a different set of spices: sage, bay leaf, parsley. They were dried but imparted a much different flavor profile than I am used to. (I always did thyme and rosemary.)

As I said before, it was one of the best soups I’ve made. I think the stock was great. The choice of the wild rice was better, too. Perhaps I’ll make this once again.

Now about those chicken dumplings in the freezer. I saved some stock in the freezer with them.

“They’re not going to fire everyone. They’ll probably just… hold us all to our contracts and change the format to Soft Rock of the Seventies until we get so sick of hearing ‘Afternoon Delight’ that we kill ourselves and they hire new people to fill our positions.”

Freakier Friday

Overall it was fun and I was happy that Lindsay Lohan is making a comeback. I liked the fact that it was a double/triple/quadruple switch. I saw it too long ago to finish out this blog post with something positive. So I’ll just end it here.

3 of 5 stars.

“And this is my cabin.” “Looks more like a rustic convention center than a cabin, sir.” “Well, I bought 50 cabins, dismantled them and then reassembled them into one big-ass cabin.”

Link of the Day [9.14.25]

Trump ruins everything he’s touched, and yet he’s winning. We? We’re losing.

With the removal of the “de minimus” rule because of the ongoing tariffs, it makes it harder to justify purchasing Nogizaka good from Japan. I mean BluRays are crazy expensive already, but add some sort of tariff/tax/VAT on shipping to the US, it will just push the price of Yoda’s graduation concert BluRay or the upcoming 13th Birthday Live release into an another realm.

Should I buy them? I’ve weighed it in my mind and I lean towards no. They may end up being 400 dollars!

I hate this present and president. We need more patriots to take aim and take them down.

https://www.404media.co/its-just-a-mess-23-people-explain-how-tariffs-have-suddenly-ruined-their-hobby/

“Hello, children. Welcome to the magical world of radio.” “Shut up, Spaz!”

Link of the Day [9.12.25]

I like programming in Perl, so the title of this Wired article is a bit hyperbolic. I like Perl’s regular expressions. I use it every day especially with the grep replacement, ack. It’s written in Perl and I like that it allows me to search with Perl regular expression.

I’ve been trying to write my programming thesis in Perl. One day it will happen.

https://www.wired.com/story/programmers-arent-humble-anymore-nobody-codes-in-perl/

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

There is an issue of bronze age Marvel “What if?” that asked the question, “What if Sue Richards had died?” Spoiler alert for The Fantastic Four: First Steps. In that issue, Sue Richards died giving birth to her son. Her death drove Mr. Fantastic crazy that he decided to kill the villain who had a hand in her death — a villain clueless as to his participation, Annihulus. It was a good read. I remember it to this day. I had thought of this as I had watched Fantastic Four.

While it was a big hit at the start, I believe it fell off quickly. It should’ve had been better with Galactus. It could’ve been better with Namor in love with Sue Storm. Yes. In that “What if?” issue, it was Namor who recognized the despair in Reed Richards. He was the one to attempted to save him. I thought more of this tossed off issue than the film.

Yet, I am not so intrigued for where Marvel’s cinematic universe goes next. As I said, I am bored of superheroes.

3 of 5 stars.

Superman

Superman is the first of DC’s answer to the Marvel’s MCU. I guess it was good. I mean it beats out the Snyder-verse version just because it’s not as serious and grey. It was earnest, approached its world-building with purpose, thoughtful to a fault, and fine entertainment.

Earnest as superman. Closely reminds one of Christopher Reeve’s version. Innocent but interesting.

It’s the start of the DC cinematic universe. Although, I believe the audience is already sick and tired of super heroes. Its a start which is always interesting.

Overall, watching it was exciting, but I’m already not ready for anymore superhero films.

3 of 5 stars.